Chapter XXIV: Coercion

Lord Beaconsfield Attacks the Government--The Irish Crisis--The
Coercion Bills--An All-night Sitting--The Arrest of Mr.
Davitt--The Revolt of the Irish Members--The Speaker’s _Coup
d’État_--Urgency--New Rules of Procedure--The Speaker’s
_Clôture_--End of the Struggle against Coercion--Mr. Dillon’s
Irish Campaign--Mr. Forster’s First Batch of “Suspects”--The
Peers Censure the Ministry--Mr. Gladstone’s “Retort
Courteous”--Abolition of the “Cat”--The Budget--Paying off the
National Debt--The Irish Land Bill--The Three “F’s”--Resignation
of the Duke of Argyll--The Strategic Blunder of the Tories--The
Fallacy of Dual Ownership--Conflict between the Lords and
Commons--Surrender of the Peers--Passing the Land Bill--Revolt
of the Transvaal--The Rout of Majuba Hill--Death of Sir George
Colley--The Boers Triumphant--Concession of Autonomy to the
Boers--Lord Beaconsfield’s Death--His Career and Character--A
“Walking Funeral” at Hughenden--The Queen and Lord Beaconsfield’s
Tomb--A Sorrowing Nation--Assassination of the Czar--The
Queen and the Duchess of Edinburgh--Character of the Czar
Emancipator--Precautions for the Safety of the Queen--Visit of
the King and Queen of Sweden to Windsor--Prince Leopold becomes
Duke of Albany--Deaths of Dean Stanley and Mr. Carlyle--Review of
Scottish Volunteers--Assassination of President Garfield--The Royal
Family--The Highlands--Holiday Pastimes--The Parnellites and the
Irish Land Act--Arrest of Mr. Parnell--No-Rent Manifesto.

The year 1881 confronted the Government with four difficulties. The Irish Question was growing more serious every day. With a heavy heart England not only saw herself committed to a war of reconquest in the Transvaal, but heard her most sanguine Imperialists admitting that Sir Bartle Frere’s scheme for a South African Confederation had utterly broken down. The Parliament of the Cape Colony would not even seriously discuss it, and Sir Bartle Frere had been recalled at the end of 1880. Victory had crowned British arms in Afghanistan, but Lord Beaconsfield’s policy of holding Candahar, and controlling the rest of the country by British Residents, was obviously impossible. Lord Lytton, who now called it an “experiment,” admitted that the murder of Cavagnari had proved it to be a failure. The claims of Greece to an increase of territory and a better frontier, had been admitted to be just by the Powers, but Turkey still refused to accept any compromise which Europe suggested, and Greece pressed her demands with growing impatience. The nation was therefore relieved to find that Parliament was to meet earlier than usual, and when it assembled on the 6th of January it was soon seen that the Session would be a stormy one. Among the upper and upper middle classes the Government was denounced with a bitterness that had no parallel, for permitting Ireland to fall into “anarchy” under the dominion of the Land League.

In the debate on the Address in the House of Lords, Lord Beaconsfield, appealing to the prevailing sentiment of disappointment, sought to show that all these difficulties were due to Mr. Gladstone’s sudden reversal of the Conservative policy when he came into office. The speech was pitched in a strange, shrewish note of anger, and it failed to produce much effect. Men could not forget that only a few months before Lord Beaconsfield had taunted the Ministry with meekly and slavishly carrying out his policy. It was not easy to forget that Lord Beaconsfield had abandoned the Coercion Act and allowed the Land League to fix its grip on Ireland, that the troubles in Afghanistan were entirely due to his desire to govern that country without being at the expense of occupying it, that the alternative policy adopted by him after the murder of Cavagnari--that of detaching Candahar and putting it under a Wali, who was to be friendly and independent--ended in the fall of the Wali and the desertion of his troops to the enemy which produced the disaster of Maiwand. As for South Africa, even the _Times_, which had supported Lord Beaconsfield’s policy in that region, now wrote, “what a miserable business our whole connection with the annexation of the Transvaal has been from first to last. The original annexation of the country was a mistake, and it has been the parent of all the rest.” Knowing that Englishmen would never sanction a war for the conquest of a free European people who objected to come under British rule, Lord Beaconsfield’s agents supplied Parliament with no information on the subject, save that which indicated that the Boers would welcome absorption in the British Empire as the surest means of deliverance from native difficulties. The Greek difficulty obviously was an evil inheritance from the Treaty of Berlin by which Lord Beaconsfield conferred on England “Peace with Honour.”

But the domestic crisis in Ireland was far too serious to permit men to indulge in party recriminations, and Lord Beaconsfield showed his sense in urging his followers not to do anything to weaken the Government. Unfortunately, neither he nor Sir Stafford Northcote had much control over the aggressive Tories who were led by the Fourth Party, and the Fourth Party, when the Session opened, cemented more strongly than ever their alliance with the Parnellites for purposes of obstructive opposition. The Tory Party were ably led on two distinct lines of attack. One wing did what it could to goad the Ministry into scourging Ireland with coercive legislation. Another wing gave the Irish members all the help it dared give them publicly in obstructing the domestic legislation, and embarrassing the Foreign Policy of the Ministry. Coercion Bills were announced on the first day of the Session, and the consequence was that it was not till after eleven days’ wearisome wrangling that the debate on the Address ended on the 20th of January. On the 24th, Mr. Forster introduced his Protection of Persons and Property (Ireland) Bill, giving the Lord-Lieutenant power to arrest by warrant persons _suspected_ of treasonable intentions, intimidation, and incitement to violate the laws. If he had this power, said Mr. Forster, he could put under lock and key the “village ruffians” and outrage-mongers who attacked people that were obnoxious to the Land League, and then Ireland would be at peace.

The violence with which the Irish Members obstructed this Bill provoked Mr. Bright to attack them in a speech on the 27th of January, which rendered him and them enemies for life. Mr. Gladstone followed in the same vein, and on Monday, the 31st of January, a scene that became historic was enacted. The debate was prolonged all day and all night, and on through the dull, grey hours of the morning of the 1st of February, and still on all night without ceasing, till the enraged and exhausted House found itself at nine in the morning of the 2nd of February still in session and with no prospect of release. Then the Speaker interfered, saying that it was clear to him the Bill had been wilfully obstructed for forty-one hours. In order to vindicate the honour of the House, whose rules seemed powerless to meet the difficulty, he declared his determination to put the main question without further debate. This was done amidst loud shouts of “Privilege” from the Irish Members, who left the House in a body, and the motion for leave to bring in the Bill, a motion rarely obstructed by any debate, was carried by a vote of 164 to 19. For the first time in the history of Parliament, a debate had been closed by the personal authority of the Speaker.

Mr. Gladstone having announced that the Second Reading of the Bill would be taken that day at noon, the Irish Members returned to the charge. They attempted to challenge the action of the Speaker, and moved the adjournment of the House; but in spite of the support which they received from Lord Randolph Churchill, they were beaten on a division, though they succeeded in wasting the whole of the sitting. Next day (Thursday, the 3rd of February) the Irish Members began the attack by asking if it were true that Mr. Davitt had been arrested. “Yes, sir,” was the answer of Sir William Harcourt. Then, when Mr. Gladstone rose to move the adoption of the new Rule of Procedure, Mr. Dillon rose to a point of order. The Speaker requested him to be seated, but he refused. He was then “named” for wilfully disregarding the authority of the Chair, and, in conformity with the Standing Order, Mr. Gladstone immediately moved his suspension for the rest of the sitting. The motion was carried by a vote of 395 to 33, and, as Mr. Dillon declined to withdraw, he was removed by the Serjeant-at-Arms. After a futile attempt on the part of Mr. Sullivan to dispute the legality of the Speaker’s action, Mr. Gladstone again rose, whereupon The O’Donoghue moved the adjournment of the House. The Speaker ruled that Mr. Gladstone should proceed. Mr. Parnell now moved that Mr. Gladstone be not

(_From a Photograph by William Lawrence, Dublin._)]

heard.[169] The Speaker “named” Mr. Parnell, who was then suspended and removed like Mr. Dillon. Mr. Finigan next repeated Mr. Parnell’s offence, and was removed in the same manner. On this occasion twenty-eight Irish Members were reported as refusing to leave their seats when the Speaker ordered the House to be cleared for a division. The Speaker “named” them all, and though Mr. Balfour and Mr. Gorst, on behalf of the Fourth Party, feelingly remonstrated against the vote for their suspension _en bloc_ being put, the Speaker ruled that this was a question not of order but convenience, and the vote was carried by 410 to 4. Then the Speaker ordered them one by one to be removed. Five others, who were not included, procured their expulsion, and, after a struggle of three hours and a half, “the Speaker’s _coup d’état_,” as the Nationalists called it, ended.[170]

Mr. Gladstone now, pale and worn out with the excitement, delivered his speech in support of the new Rules of Procedure. Sir Stafford Northcote showed that he still shared the hostility of the Tory Party to any scheme for effectively crushing obstruction; but the conduct of the Irish Members had so incensed the House, that he had to limit his opposition to an amendment which but slightly weakened the force of Mr. Gladstone’s proposal. The Rule finally adopted declared that, when a Minister moved, after notice, that the state of public business was urgent, the Speaker was to put the question without debate. If this motion were carried by a majority of not less than three to one in a House of 300 Members, then the powers of the House for the regulation of its business should be transferred to the Speaker, who could enforce such rules as he pleased for its management, till the state of public business should be declared by him to be no longer urgent. A motion could be made by a Member to terminate urgency, but it must be put without debate. On the 9th of February the Speaker laid before the House the new Rules which he had drawn up for the state of urgency in which public business was now declared to be. They adopted the principle of the _Clôture_, which Sir Stafford Northcote deprecated and the Fourth Party abhorred, and gave the Speaker power, when supported by a three-fourths’ majority, to close a debate by putting the question without further discussion. No debate on a motion to go into Committee, or on postponing the preamble of a Bill under urgency, was to be allowed. Opportunities for moving adjournments were curtailed, and the Speaker was to have power to order a Member to stop talking when he became guilty of “irrelevance or tedious repetition.” In Committee the _Clôture_ was not to be applied, but no Members (except those in charge of Bills or those who had moved amendments) were to be allowed to speak more than once to the same question.

Even under urgency the debate on the Coercion Bill in Committee went on slowly, and at one time (owing to Lord Randolph Churchill, who supported the Bill “with reluctance and distrust,” and Sir John Holker, who contended that “liberty was more precious than coercion,” displaying much sympathy with the opponents of the measure) it was feared that Ministers would lose the support of a large section of the Opposition. This fear was baseless, but the debate went on till the 21st of February, when the Speaker, on a motion summarily moved by Lord Hartington, suddenly terminated it under the new Rules. All amendments not disposed of after seven o’clock on the 22nd were put and divided on without debate. The measure received the Queen’s assent on the 2nd of March. A Bill giving the Irish police power to search houses for arms was introduced by Sir William Harcourt on the 1st of March, read a third time on the 4th, and passed by the House of Lords on the 18th of March. The struggle against coercion thus lasted nine weeks, and the violence with which the Irish Party conducted it is defended by Mr. T. P. O’Connor on the grounds that it consolidated the Nationalist Party, and that the scenes in the House so roused the temper of the Irish people that the Peers were afraid to reject the Land Bill of 1881, as they did the Compensation for Disturbance Bill of 1880.[171] On the other hand, they permanently alienated from the Irish Party the sympathies of a large class of moderate Liberals in England, who were anxious to legislate for Ireland in a sympathetic spirit.

After the Coercion Bill had passed, Mr. Dillon carried on a passionate agitation against the Government in Ireland, and Mr. Forster retaliated by imprisoning him and several other Land Leaguers as “suspects” in May. Mr. Finigan was sent down to Coventry, where an election was taking place, to canvass the constituency on behalf of the Tory candidate, Mr. Eaton, a tangible expression of gratitude for the occasional sympathy that had been extended to the Parnellites by Lord Randolph Churchill, and some other Conservatives during the Coercion debates. There was a lull in the storm, however, during which the Peers censured the Government for refusing to occupy Candahar. A vote of the House of Commons on the 25th of March reversed this censure, for the House rejected by 336 to 216 a motion of Mr. Stanhope’s, blaming the Government for withdrawing from Candahar “at the present time.” When the Tories refused to commit themselves to the proposition that it was the duty of the Government to hold Candahar permanently, and merely demanded its occupation “at the present time,” their attack assumed the complexion of a party demonstration. If England were to leave Candahar at all the sooner she left it the better, for the longer her troops stayed the more difficult it would be to establish the native government of Abdurrahman in the Province. The Army Discipline Bill, abolishing flogging, passed through the House of Commons without much opposition from the Tories, and was read a third time by the House of Lords on the 7th of April. The Budget was introduced by Mr. Gladstone on the 4th of April, and on an estimated expenditure of £84,705,000, and an estimated revenue of £85,900,000, he showed a probable surplus of £1,195,000. This was reduced by £100,000, consumed in paying off a loan for building barracks. Mr. Gladstone, therefore, reduced the Income Tax to 5d. in the pound, and converted the deficit thereby incurred of £275,000, into a surplus of £295,000, by levying an uniform surtax of 4d. a gallon on foreign spirits, in accordance with the test of standard strength applied to wines, and by minor changes in the Probate, Legacy, and Succession Duties. The most important part of his statement was that, during the past year, the National Debt had been reduced by £7,000,000. He also foreshadowed a great scheme for the extinction of £60,000,000 of debt, by the conversion of one-third of the short annuities terminating in 1885 into long annuities terminating in 1906. As this would make Consols scarce, it would put up their price, and enable him or his successor, in the course of ten years, to reduce the interest on the National Debt.

The long-expected Irish Land Bill was introduced by Mr. Gladstone on the 7th of April. It gave tenants the right to go before a Land Court and have “fair rents” fixed for fifteen years, a fair rent being one that would let the tenant live and thrive. During these fifteen years eviction, save for non-payment of rent, was to be impossible. If a tenant wished to sell his tenant-right or goodwill, the landlord had the pre-emptive right of buying at the price fixed by the Court. The Court was to have power to advance to tenants desirous of buying their farms three-fourths of the purchase-money, or even the whole if need be, and these advances were repayable on easy terms. Advances could also be made to promote emigration. The Bill was well received on the whole by the country, but the landed gentry denounced it as an act of socialism and confiscation, and the Duke of Argyll resigned his office. On the 24th of April long and stormy debates on the Second Reading began, and it was not till the end of July that the Bill was sent up to the House of Lords. The Tory Party made a mistake in basing their opposition to the measure on the ground that it was socialistic, confiscatory, and

(_From a Drawing by Harry Furniss._)]

contrary to the laws of political economy. The principle of arranging the business relations of landlord and tenant in Ireland by Act of Parliament having been accepted by the country, the only practical method of attacking the Bill was to have shown that it would not arrange them to the mutual satisfaction of the parties interested. The theory of the measure was, that every Irish farm is owned by two persons--by the farmer, who owns the improvements he has made on the soil, by the landlord who owns everything else. The Bill gave the tenant additional means for protecting his share of the land from being devoured by the landlord. Did it do this effectively, and if effectively, in such a manner as to work no injustice to the landlord? From the Tory point of view, it would have been easy to argue that no system of dual ownership, which forces persons with hostile interests into partnership in husbandry, can work smoothly. If prices rise the landlord’s fixed rent will not rise with them. If prices fall the tenant will refuse to pay the fixed rent, because it is no longer fair; and then the old weary path of agrarian warfare has again to be trod. A great scheme for establishing peasant proprietorship all over Ireland with the help of the State might have saved the Irish landlords at this juncture. But the Tories were led not by a Stein, but a Cecil, and the golden opportunity was lost. From the Irish point of view, the Bill bristled with weak points. It did nothing for leaseholders. It left tenants loaded with arrears, and therefore still exposed to eviction. Although Mr. Healy inserted a clause prohibiting the Courts from taking a tenant’s improvements into the valuation on which a fair rent was fixed, the Judges, by a decision in the case of Adams v. Dunseath, virtually nullified the clause.

It was not till the 29th of July that Mr. Gladstone carried the Third Reading of the Bill after a desperate struggle. The House of Lords mutilated it, so that it became worse than useless, and then there came a deep cry of indignation from the country. Mr. Gladstone sent the Bill back practically unaltered, and as the tempest of anger in the country rose the Peers surrendered and let the measure pass. The Ministry, however, had to drop all their other Bills, except those abolishing flogging in the Army and Navy. The only private Members who carried Bills of public interest were Mr. Hutchinson and Mr. Roberts. Mr. Hutchinson’s Bill protected newspaper reports of lawful meetings from prosecution for libel, and made it necessary to obtain the Attorney-General’s sanction before criminal proceedings for libel could be asked for. Mr. Roberts passed the Act closing public-houses during Sundays in Wales.

Mr. Bradlaugh’s case, however, again vexed the angry sea of political strife at intervals during the Session. The law courts ruled that he could not legally make an affirmation, and so Mr. Bradlaugh resigned his seat, and again got elected for Northampton. This time he presented himself on the 26th of April to be sworn as a new Member. Sir Stafford Northcote objected, and though no precedent exists for preventing a new Member from being sworn, the Speaker referred the matter to the House, which decided against Mr. Bradlaugh. Thereupon ensued a shocking scene, and Mr. Bradlaugh had to be removed by force. Nothing strikes the reader now as more absurd than the protestations of the Tories, that to concede this claim was to sanction sacrilege. The course they objected to was precisely the one which Mr. Bradlaugh adopted when they were in office in 1886, and which they and the Speaker found it expedient to permit. A Bill was now brought in to allow all Members to affirm who could not conscientiously take the oath. This was opposed and so successfully obstructed that it had to be dropped. After that Mr. Bradlaugh, on the 3rd of August, cheered by an immense crowd of sympathisers, attempted to enter the House in defiance of an order which Sir Stafford Northcote had carried excluding him from its precincts. There were some of his Radical sympathisers--Mr. Fawcett was among the number--who did not quite approve of this proceeding. At all events Mr. Bradlaugh gained nothing by it, for he was flung into Palace Yard by the police hatless, dishevelled, and with his coat torn in the fray.

The recall of Sir Bartle Frere did not settle the South African difficulty. Sir G. P. Colley, in trying to avenge the defeat of Bronkhurst Spruit, was early in the year beaten by the Boers at Laing’s Nek and Ingogo. On the 26th of February, reinforced by Sir Evelyn Wood, he let the Boers out-manœuvre him, and spring upon the oddly variegated and composite force with which he had rashly occupied Majuba Hill. Though the enemy’s troops only consisted of raw levies of irregular sharpshooters, they soon dispersed the British host. It was a shameful rout, in which a kind fate doomed the luckless Colley to death. The unfortunate thing was that this fray should have happened at all. Negotiations were actually going on between the British and the Boers for a peaceful settlement.[172] Were they to be broken off? After admitting by opening up these negotiations, that the war was unjust, was a great and powerful Empire to go on with it for the sake of _prestige_? And was it, after all, British prowess that would be vindicated by victory? Was it not rather the fame of Sir George Pomeroy Colley that had alone been sullied? In other words, was England justified in slaughtering a few hundred Boer farmers, because Sir George Colley had let them beat his heroic but mismanaged troops in battle? It is impossible to say how the nation answered these difficult questions. But Mr. Gladstone’s reply was an emphatic “No,” although he had unfortunately declared, immediately after coming into office, that he would not grant the demands of the Boers, till they laid down their arms. The end of it was, that the Boers were allowed to set up an autonomous Republic under a British Protectorate, British interference being limited to controlling their foreign policy. It is curious to observe that this was the only act ever done by Mr. Gladstone which the European and American Press, with cordial unanimity, declared enhanced the _prestige_ of England, as a State so confident of its giant’s strength, that it deemed it ignoble to use it like a giant.

In the spring the shadow of mourning fell over the nation. On the morning of the 19th of April Lord Beaconsfield, who had been ailing for some days, passed away peacefully to his last rest. Mr. Gladstone at once telegraphed to his relatives offering a public funeral in Westminster Abbey, but the executors were compelled to decline the honour. Lord Beaconsfield’s will directed that he should be buried beside his wife, and there were also legal obstacles that even the Queen’s personal wishes could not overcome.[173] His life, to use a favourite phrase of his own, was “really a romance,” and his career a long and brilliant adventure. His strength lay in his freedom from prejudices, in his intellectual detachment from English insularity, in his consummate knowledge of the foibles of the lower middle class whom he enfranchised. He achieved success by skilfully avoiding the mistake of Peel, who led his Party without educating it. Lord Beaconsfield did both. His fame as a writer of sparkling political burlesques, his command of invective, his wit, and his audacity won for him the ear of a Senate which loves men who can amuse it. The defection of the Peelites left the Tory Party, in 1846, intellectually poverty-stricken, and though a proud aristocracy long refused to recognise their most brilliant swordsman as their leader, they had to accept him at last.

At this period of his career the chief obstacle in Mr. Disraeli’s path was believed to be the hostility of the Queen, who, however, nobly atoned for it by subsequently loading him with favours. With the exception, perhaps, of Lord Aberdeen, no Minister of the present generation has been more sincerely beloved as a friend by his Sovereign than Lord Beaconsfield. He had the subtle tact and the delicate refinement of a woman, with the stubborn courage and iron will of a man. As for his policy and his principles, the time has not yet come to judge them fairly. He was no more to blame for bringing his generous democratic impulses to the service of the Tory Party than the eldest son of a Whig Peer is to blame for limping after the Radicals on the crutch of Conservative instincts. In the one case it is the tyranny of chance and opportunity, in the other the accident of birth, that determines the choice. All through life Mr. Disraeli had to fight his battle from false positions, and this gave his efforts an air of gladiatorial insincerity. Not till 1874, when he came to power with a large majority, was he entirely a free agent; and then it was seen that, though comparatively indifferent to questions of administration and questions involving the mere forms of Government, he took an eager and practical interest in social reform. For nearly two years he was at the zenith of his power. The House of Commons he managed with bright urbanity, easy grace, conciliatory dexterity, and a light but firm touch which had never been seen before. Suddenly and without the least warning his spell seemed broken. His fine tact disappeared; his touch grew hard and was felt to be a little irresolute; faint traces of irritability ruffled the clear surface of his serene intelligence; and in a sudden emergency he seemed to grow maladroit. The change first became obvious when he attempted to deal with Mr. Plimsoll’s case in 1875, and, as it grew, his personal ascendency over the House of Commons slowly decayed. He seemed to live more and more in dreams, and to grow less and less sensitive to the pulse of popular opinion. It was in this mood that he fell into the two disastrous blunders of his life.

He tried to solve the Eastern Question by applying to it the obsolete ideas of Palmerston. When this mistake led him from one embarrassment to another, he tried to retrieve the situation by applying his own ideas to it. Unfortunately, when he went to find them he looked, not into the depths of his own clear intelligence, but into a romance written by one whom he had known in his youth, and who was styled “D’Israeli the Younger.” “Yes,” he said to a friend who put the question to him in those days, “I sometimes do read ‘Tancred’ now--_for instruction_.” Because the stolid English people grew sick of vainly trying to shape their destinies according to the Tancredian scheme of the universe, Lord Beaconsfield fell from power at the moment when he was most fully persuaded that monarch and multitude were alike under the spell of his picturesque personality. Had he been ten years younger when he obtained the majority of 1874, the crash of 1880 would probably have been averted. There is a strange pathos in the close of this dazzling career. According to Sir Stafford Northcote, the last words he was understood to utter were these: “Is there any _bad_ news in the _Gazette_?”[174]

On the 26th of April a spectacle, at once affecting and beautiful, took place in the church at Hughenden, where Lord Beaconsfield’s funeral was solemnised. His body had been transferred from London to High Wycombe, and thence conveyed to Hughenden Manor, without the slightest pomp or display of any kind. He, on whose accents the world was wont to hang breathlessly at supreme moments in its fate, received what is known in Bucks as “a walking funeral.” Nothing was to be seen of the ghastly mummery of undertakers. Only one feature in the simple obsequies gave any hint as to the place which the deceased had filled in the State. Before the bier walked his faithful servant, carrying on a cushion of crimson velvet an Earl’s coronet and the insignia of the Order of the Garter. Thus was he laid, as he wished, beside his wife. Notwithstanding his desire for privacy, nothing could prevent vast numbers of persons of wholly unofficial position, and in many cases indifferent to political partisanship, from attending to pay the illustrious dead the last homage of affection and respect. Uninvited guests in serried masses swarmed around the churchyard, and lined the road to Hughenden Manor. Royalty was present in the persons of the Prince of Wales, the Duke of Connaught, and Prince Leopold, the last-named representing the Queen.[175] Behind the Princes came the Ambassadors and representatives of foreign Powers, the friends of the deceased nobleman who were his colleagues in the Governments of 1868 and 1874, and the general body of invited friends. Among these Lord Beaconsfield left not a dry eye behind him. Not since the death of Fox had any Statesman been so affectionately mourned by the people to whom he had consecrated the powers of his brilliant genius.[176]

On the 30th of April the Queen and Princess Beatrice visited Lord Beaconsfield’s tomb, every precaution having been observed to prevent the fact of the Royal movements from becoming known in the district. At four o’clock Lord Rowton and Sir Philip Rose, with the Vicar of Hughenden, completed the arrangements for her Majesty’s reception. At half-past four her outriders passed through the lodge gate of Hughenden Manor, being followed rapidly by her carriage, which proceeded to the wicket gate, and stopped immediately at the entrance to the churchyard. Here the Queen and Princess Beatrice were received by Lord Rowton, with whom they walked to the south porch of the church. Her Majesty proceeded to the tomb, and, with tearful eyes, placed a votive wreath and cross of white camellias and other flowers beside the other offerings, which completely covered the lid of the coffin. She then drove through the grounds to the Manor House, and partook of tea in the saloon; after which she inspected the late Earl’s study and other apartments, and left Hughenden for Windsor.

Although diplomatic controversies had created much ill-feeling between the Governments of England and Russia, the Queen and the Czar had ever maintained the friendliest personal relations. It was, therefore, with the deepest pain that her Majesty was informed, on the 14th of March, of the assassination of Alexander II. The Czar was returning from a military review near St. Petersburg on Sunday, the 13th of March, when a bomb was thrown, which exploded behind the Imperial carriage, killing several soldiers. The Czar jumped out of the carriage to see to the poor men who were hurt, and it was to this kindly act that he owed his death. Another bomb was flung at his feet, which exploded and mangled his body in the most cruel manner. The Queen did what she could to console the Duchess of Edinburgh, who was prostrated with grief by her father’s death. The Court was ordered to go into mourning for a month. Both Houses of Parliament addressed messages of condolence to her Majesty and the Duchess of Edinburgh. The nation, with hardly a dissentient voice, echoed the sentiments of their representatives, and the Press was filled with generous tributes of admiration and respect for the Czar Emancipator. It was now recognised that Alexander II. would live in history as one of the most enlightened and humane of European Sovereigns. The great act of his life, the liberation of the Serfs, had converted them into communal peasant proprietors, and put them in a more secure position than any other peasantry in Europe. His devotion to the highest interests of Russia knew no limits, and no European Sovereign has, in our time, excelled him in the skill and wisdom with which he guided and moderated the aspirations of his excitable subjects. It was notorious that he was forced into the Turkish War by a current of popular feeling he could not withstand. On the other hand, when engaged in the war he quitted himself like a man. Tales of his well-known kindness of heart and sympathy for suffering spread from the camps and hospitals through Russia, and invested him in the eyes of the Slav race with the mystic halo of a Divine Figure. His firmness and

(_From a Photograph by W. and D. Downey._)]

obstinacy in pressing on the war crushed the despondent party, who would have ended it at any price after the first disaster at Plevna. When his policy of forcing the Balkan passes triumphed, the same firmness and obstinacy enabled him to curb those who, flushed with success, would have abused their victory. It was by his orders that deference was paid to German and Austrian opinions in the settlement of peace. It was his moderation and loyal desire to live at peace with Britain that enabled Count Schouvaloff to build for Lord Salisbury the golden bridge of retreat which he crossed when he signed the Secret Agreement, that was afterwards expanded into the Treaty of Berlin. No foreign despot ever succeeded to the same extent in winning the personal respect of the most thoughtful portion of the British people. The assassination of the Czar called attention to the extraordinary destructive

(_From a Photograph by W. and D. Downey._)]

forces which modern science had placed in the hands of the political assassin. That the event produced a profound and prostrating effect on the nerves of the Court was soon seen. The Queen left Windsor for Osborne on the 6th of April, and the public were somewhat alarmed to find that for the first time in her career precautions were taken to protect her life, as if she were a despot travelling amidst a people who thirsted for her blood. The Royal train was not only as usual preceded by a pilot engine, but orders had been given to station patrols of platelayers, each within sight of the other, along the whole line. Every watchman was provided with flags and fog signals, so that on the least suspicion the train could be stopped. The time of the Queen’s departure had been announced for Tuesday. It was at the last moment altered to Wednesday. When she arrived at Portsmouth, the _Alberta_, in which it was supposed she was to embark, was discarded for the _Enchantress_, which was suddenly ordered up; and from these and other circumstances it was inferred that the Queen was afraid she might be made the victim of a dark plot like that to which the Czar had succumbed. Fenianism, indeed, was beginning to raise its head again in Ireland under the stimulating application of repressive measures. Soon afterwards attempts which were made to blow up the Mansion House and the Liverpool Town Hall indicated that there was some justification for the Queen’s alarm.

Court life was not so dull during 1881 as it had been in previous years. The Queen was ever flitting to and fro between Windsor and Osborne, and almost every month during the season she held a Drawing Room in Buckingham Palace. State Concerts were not infrequent, and on the 17th of May the King and Queen of Sweden visited Windsor, and the King was invested with the Order of the Garter. On the 20th the Queen left Windsor and proceeded to Balmoral; and on the 24th it was announced that she had determined to revive the ancient Scottish title of Duke of Albany and confer it on Prince Leopold. It was a title of evil omen. The fate of the first prince who bore it supplies a dark and tragic episode to Scott’s “Fair Maid of Perth.” The second Duke of Albany died on the castle hill of Stirling. When conferred on the second son of James II. of Scotland it soon became extinct. Darnley wore it before he was married to Mary Stuart. The second son of James VI. and the second son of Charles I. bore it. Charles Edward Stuart was long known as Count of Albany. It was conferred on Prince Frederick, the second son of George II. Prince Leopold had, by his thoughtful and sagacious speeches in public, attracted to himself much admiration, and his feeble health and devotion to his mother had made him the object of kindly popular sympathy. The announcement of his elevation was therefore hailed with some expression of regret that he should be doomed to wear a title that had invariably brought ill-luck or misfortune to those on whom it was conferred.

On the 22nd of June the Queen returned to Windsor, where she was visited by the Crown Prince and Princess of Germany and their family in July. A brilliant Review of 50,000 Volunteers was held before her on the 9th of July in Windsor Great Park. On the 18th her Majesty lost one of the most cherished friends of her family, the amiable Dean Stanley, who died somewhat suddenly of erysipelas. Dean Stanley, it has been well said, was the impersonation of the “sweetness and light” which the disciples of Mr. Matthew Arnold strive to impart to modern culture. His biography of the great Dr. Arnold has an assured place among the classical works of the Victorian age. His influence on the Anglican Church was that of a leader at once conciliatory and tolerant, and singularly susceptible to popular impulses and aspirations. His relations to the Royal Family were always close and intimate, and, as the husband of Lady Augusta Bruce, the Queen’s faithful personal friend and attendant for many years, his career was watched with great interest and sympathy by her Majesty. Churchmen and dissenters of all shades attended his funeral in Westminster Abbey, where he was buried in Henry VII.’s Chapel under a mountain of floral wreaths, one of the most superb being sent by the Queen. It was through Dean Stanley that the Queen made the personal acquaintance of Mr. Carlyle, who had died earlier in the year (the 5th of February), but without leaving behind him the sweet and sunny memories that cluster round Stanley’s name.

On the 24th of August the Queen arrived at Edinburgh, and took up her quarters at Holyrood Palace. In the afternoon she visited the Royal Infirmary, and on the following day she reviewed 40,000 Scottish Volunteers (who had come from the remotest parts of the country) in the great natural amphitheatre of the Queen’s Park. The spectacle was marred by the torrents of rain that fell all day, and the troops had to march past the saluting-point in a sea of slush and mud which reached nearly to their knees. The fine appearance and discipline of the men, the patience and hardihood with which they carried out their programme through all the miseries of the day, deeply touched the Queen. In spite of entreaties to the contrary, she persisted in sharing these discomforts with them, holding the review in an open carriage, in which she remained seated under a deluge of rain till the last regiment had defiled before her. From Edinburgh the Court proceeded to Balmoral. There the Queen received the melancholy news of the death of Mr. James A. Garfield, President of the United States, who had been shot by an assassin named Guiteau on the 2nd of July at the railway station at Washington. The wound was a mortal one, and, after lingering for many weeks in great pain, the President died on the 19th of September. The Queen sent a touching letter of sympathy to Mrs. Garfield, and ordered the Court to go into mourning, as if Mr. Garfield had been a member of the Royal caste. In this she had the concurrence of the people, who were profoundly moved by his tragic fate. His career, beginning in a log-hut in the backwoods of Ohio, and ending in the White House at Washington, was one of heroic achievement and independence, illustrating, in its various phases of vicissitude, the best qualities of Anglo-Saxon manhood.

At Balmoral the Royal holiday was marked by the appearance of the Queen at some of the local sports. The Prince and Princess of Wales were at Abergeldie, and the retainers of the two families were frequently in the habit of playing cricket matches with each other. One of these took place at Abergeldie in September, when the Queen and her family and a brilliant suite attended and witnessed the play, her Majesty taking a keen interest in the varying fortunes of the day, and eagerly stimulating her own people to strive for victory. After the cricket match there were “tugs of war.” In this struggle the Abergeldie team, who had lost the cricket match, retrieved their defeat by conquering the Queen’s retainers. On the 23rd of November the Court returned to Windsor, and soon afterwards it was announced that the Duke of Albany was to be married to the Princess Hélène of Waldeck-Pyrmont. On the 16th of December her Majesty left Windsor for Osborne.

The political movements of the Recess had been followed with growing anxiety by the Queen. Bye-elections and municipal elections seemed to show, not only that the hold of the Government on the country was becoming feebler, but that a working alliance between the Tories and the Irish Party had been formed. Mr. Parnell’s followers had been divided in opinion as to how they should treat the Land Act, some declaring that they should impede its working, others urging that every advantage should be taken of it. Mr. Parnell, after some hesitancy, united his Party on the policy of “testing” the Act. The Land League was directed to push into the Land Courts a series of “test cases,” that is to say, of cases where average rents were levied, so that a clear idea might be gained of the practical working of the Act. At the same time, the Irish people were led to believe that, unless the Act reduced the rent of Ireland from £17,000,000 to £3,000,000, that is to say, unless it reduced rent to “prairie value,” it would not do justice. The tenantry were warned by the Land League not to go into Court, but to stand aside till the decisions on the test cases were given. When Mr. Gladstone visited Leeds in the first week of October, he fiercely attacked Mr. Parnell for interfering between the tenants and the Law Courts. Mr. Parnell retorted in an acrid and contemptuous speech at Wexford on the 9th of October. On the 13th of October Mr. Parnell was arrested in Dublin as a “suspect” under the Coercion Act, and all his more prominent followers were in quick succession lodged in Kilmainham Jail. Mr. Healy was in England, and Mr. Biggar and Mr. Arthur O’Connor escaped the vigilance of the police and joined him. This _coup d’état_ was somewhat theatrically contrived. It was so timed that Mr. Gladstone was able to announce it at a municipal banquet at the Guildhall, where he declared that the enemy had fallen, amidst rapturous shouts of applause. The Land Leaguers retaliated by issuing a manifesto to the Irish people to pay no rent whilst their leaders were in prison--a false step, for, in view of the opposition of the clergy, a strike against rent was not feasible. The Land League was then suppressed by Mr. Forster as an unlawful association, and agrarian outrages began to increase every day. According to the Nationalists, this was the natural and necessary result of locking up popular leaders, who could alone restrain the people. Mr. Forster, however, regarded the growth of the outrages as an act of vengeance on the part of the League, whose leaders secretly encouraged them. In Ulster, however, the Land Act worked well, and rents were reduced from 20 to 30 per cent. all round. Every week fresh drafts of “suspects” were lodged in jail, and as the year closed it became evident that Ireland was fast falling under the terrorism of the old secret societies.